8 Oc a detail of 10
men from each Co was made for fatigue duty & I was put in command &
went & commenced to clear up & set our tents; 10 Oc an order came for
us to prepare rations & get ready to march at 8½ night we ware called in
line and marched to the landing in Ft Pickering 9½ Oc we went on board the
packets Anglo Saxon, Ida May & Lebanon for Helena Arkansas.
SOURCE: Edgar R.
Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2,
October 1925, p. 101
News from Atlanta
conflicting; papers, so far as we know, admit the repulse of Hood, then claim a
victory. Later statements rather choke victorious editors. Hood feels compelled
to fight and not leave the town. Sherman intends to give him the whipping
Johnston has all summer been running away from, if he makes the stand.
My complaints are
unabated; are attended with weakening pains which at times prostrate me.
Rations irregular; often missing a day or two.
SOURCE: John Worrell Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 94
Left camp on Smith's
Plantation early this morning. Marched to Perkin's Landing, on the Mississippi
River. Men on half rations; everything reduced to the smallest allowance
possible.
SOURCE: Joseph
Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph
Stockton, p. 13
Roads terribly dusty
and weather hot. Marched quick time; water scarce, rations reduced, consisting
of two pieces of hard tack and half rations of coffee a day since leaving Grand
Gulf. Sherman's corps got ahead of us. Reached our long-looked-for destination
at last, the rear of Vicksburg. We arrived about dusk a mile outside of the
rebel fortifications. Sherman's corps marched to the right of the Jackson Road,
the one on which we entered, their right extending to the Mississippi River
(north of Vicksburg), McPherson's corps coming next, and Ransom's brigade being
in the front. took position on Sherman's left, and McClernand's corps coming in
on another road took position on McPherson's left, and at last we had the
rebels hemmed in Vicksburg, the goal of our hopes for months past, the object
of so many hard marches, the rebel stronghold in the West, the only point that
kept the Mississippi River from being free to the North. The 72d Ill. was
thrown out as advance guard that night and myself as officer of the guard.
Although completely worn out I did not dare to sleep, but kept moving from
point to point all night. At one time a party of cavalry came riding along the
road on which I had posted some men, and although dressed in our uniform my men
would not let them pass until they had sent for me. I recognized one of the
officers and permitted them to go through. A large fire was burning in
Vicksburg, but we could not discover what it was. We knew there would be bloody
work for the morrow, as we would have to assault their works to get into
Vicksburg.
SOURCE: Joseph
Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph
Stockton, p. 15
After returning to
Jacinto and cooking three days' rations, our battalion moved down to within one
mile of Booneville, where our wagons had been stationed since we took quarters
in the vacant houses of Jacinto, May 5th. We heard that the Federals were
marching down east of Jacinto, in the direction of Booneville, but we thought
that that must be a false report. Corinth was evacuated that night.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate
Cavalry, p. 172
And the 16 day was a
very pritty warm day and we had orders to cook too days rations we was
expecting the Yankees to cross the River again but they did not
SOURCE: Bartlett
Yancey Malone, The Diary of Bartlett Yancey Malone, p. 28
Rained all night Boys all wet. offs of 33d. no blankets & lay on cabin floor. rains all day and heavy wind, at 12. see no land. at 5 P. M. at Grants Pass. an draw eats. have to give up some to our officers. I am ordered on duty. wind up so that the gulf is not safe boat draws too much water to go through the pass. quite a no sea sick today. rations running low.
SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, Thirty-Third Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, Vol. XIII, No. 8, Third Series, Des Moines, April 1923, p. 575
Slept well, rained all night. At 10. a. m. start through pass. aground at 11. Brown with 4 co of our Regt passes us here. Men runing short of rations & begin to complain at 2 P. M. Small steamer Mustang comes to our relief. transfer men and baggage. Ship floats fast an hour again right in the pass abreast of Ft Powell, when she gets off Mustang runs alongside and transfers back. 3 reb deserters from Mobile come to us on Mustang. about 5.30 Ship touches at Ft. Gaines. thence to 4 mile above Ft. Morgan, at 7. P. M. disembark, march through sand ¾ of mile to camp. on the beach of Gulf. sleep within 200 yds of Gulf. breakers Ligh & night clear. a Grand sight. 30 000 men here now.
SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, Thirty-Third Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, Vol. XIII, No. 8, Third Series, Des Moines, April 1923, p. 575
Bright and clear,
warm and pleasant. How well do I remember two short years ago today when we
took a sleigh ride and made a regular family visit at Uncle Tim's. Since then I
have traveled over four thousand miles, five hundred and eighty of which I
marched with gun on my shoulder; have seen more vice and drunkenness than I
ever supposed existed, yet I hope I am morally no worse than when surrounded by
kind relatives and friends. An orderly call beat immediately after reveille
this morning at which time we received orders to cook our rations and be ready
by half past seven. We cooked our fresh pork and by the appointed time had it
in our haversacks, and our knapsacks strapped on our backs, ready for the
march. We went eight miles and camped close to a small town called Lafayette,
situated on the Memphis and Charleston R. R. As soon as we had pitched our
tents, Chas. Berry and myself went out one mile from camp and killed a hog. We
are now the first regiment of the first brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General
McArthur, of Gen. Hamilton's corps, of the left wing of Gen. Grant's army. We
were put in the rear of the brigade today as a special guard to keep up the stragglers.
SOURCE: Seth James Wells, The Siege of Vicksburg: From the Diary of Seth J. Wells, Including Weeks of Preparation and of Occupation After the Surrender, pp. 24-5
Corinth. Orders were given to Battery to cook three days' rations in their haversacks and three days' in the wagons, all ready to march on the following morning.
SOURCE: Jenkin Lloyd Jones, An Artilleryman's Diary, p. 11
Crab Orchard, Ky. We
arrived at 10 a. m., making ten miles from Lancaster this morning. Crab Orchard
is a lovely town of about one thousand inhabitants. We are encamped about one
mile south of the village, in a lovely spot, shut in on all sides by high hills
and forests. To the south, far in the distance, the Cumberland Mountains raise
their blue peaks as landmarks to guide us on our course when next we move.
From what I see and
hear of the surrounding country, the boys will have to depend on their rations
for food.
Soldiers are strange
beings. No sooner were our knapsacks unslung than every man of us went to work
as though his very life depended on present exertions. We staked out streets,
gathered stakes and poles with which to erect our tents, and now, at 3 p. m., behold!
a city has arisen, like a mushroom, from the ground. Everything is done as
though it were to be permanent, when no man knows how long we may remain or how
soon we may move on.
Part of our route
from Camp Parks lay through a country made historic by the chivalric deeds of
Daniel Boone. We passed his old log fort, and the high bluff from which he
hurled an Indian and dashed him in pieces on the rocks below. At the foot of
the bluff is the cave in which he secreted himself when hard pressed by savages.
His name is chiseled in the rock above the entrance. The place is now being
strongly fortified.
We had a lively
skirmish in Company G this morning. About a week ago the Brigade Surgeon
ordered quinine and whiskey to be issued to every man in the brigade, twice
daily. During our march the quinine had been omitted, but whiskey was dealt out
freely.
Solon Crandall—the
boy who picked the peaches while under fire at South Mountain—is naturally
pugnacious, and whiskey makes him more so. This morning, while under the
influence of his "ration," he undertook the difficult task of
"running" Company G.
Captain Tyler,
hearing the "racket," emerged from his tent and inquired the cause.
At this Solon, being a firm believer in "non-intervention," waxed
wroth. In reply he told the Captain, "It's none of your business. Understand, I am running this
company, and if you don't go back to your tent and mind your own business, I'll
have you arrested and sent to the bull pen. At this the Captain
"closed" with his rival in a rough-and-tumble fight, in which the
Captain, supported by a Sergeant, gained the day.
I have the most
comfortable quarters now I have ever had. Our tent is composed of five pieces
of canvas, each piece the size of our small tents—two for the top, or roof, the
eaves three feet from the ground. The sides and ends are made to open one at a
time or all at once, according to the weather. Three of us tent together, and
we have plenty of room. We have bunks made of boards, raised two feet from the
ground. This, with plenty of straw, makes a voluptuous bed. I received a letter
from home last evening, dated August 13th. Oh, these vexatious postal delays;
they are the bane of my life. I wonder if postmasters are human beings, with
live hearts inside their jackets, beating in sympathetic unison with other
hearts. I wonder did they ever watch and wait, day after day, until hope was
well-nigh dead, conscious that love had sped its message and was anxiously
awaiting a return. A letter from home! What thrilling emotions of pleasure;
what unfathomable depths of joy it brings the recipient. It is not altogether
the words, be they many or few, but the remembrances they call forth; the
recognition of the well-known handwriting; old associations and past scenes are
brought forth from the storehouse of the memory and held up to view. The joy of
meeting—the agony of parting—all are lived over again.
We are having
brigade inspection today, which is suggestive of a move, but our artillery has
not turned up yet, and we will not take the field without it.
The health of our
men has improved wonderfully since we reached Kentucky. A more rugged, hearty
set of men I never saw than the few who are left. But, as I look around upon
the noble fellows, now drawn up in line for inspection, a feeling of sadness
steals over me. One short year ago nine hundred ninety-eight as brave, true men
as ever shouldered gun marched forth to battle in their country's cause. Of all
that noble band, only two hundred in line today. Where are the absent ones?
Some, it is true, are home on furlough, but not all. They have left a bloody
track from South Mountain's gory height through Antietam, Fredericksburg and
Vicksburg to Jackson, Mississippi.
Oh, how I miss
familiar faces!
SOURCE: David Lane,
A Soldier's Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862-1865, pp. 86-89
Eighty-eight years this day since our fathers gave to the world that
important document setting forth the immortal truth that all men are born free
with equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and declaring
the independence of these states from foreign domination—the Declaration
of American Independence. On these great truths they founded a Republic. Today
their posterity are in mourning for the loss of sons. In painful expectations,
in earnest hope and fear, their eyes are turned toward two mighty armies
contending on the same soil, one for those principles and that Republic, the
other battling to maintain a dying rebellion inaugurated to overthrow the work
of their hands, and to found a government on principles the reverse. Nothing
was ever more plainly asserted in both words and deeds than this. Here within
the scope of my vision, are 26,000 men suffering for the great sin that has
cursed our people, offered a living sacrifice that it may not be destroyed but
saved free from the contaminating influence that has stained our fair emblem—the
boasted emblem of liberty; that the Union of the States shall not be broken by
the hands of Treason; the foul assassin of Liberty! O, that the day of glorious
triumph may soon come and with it the right, and stop the horrid evil of war!
Let the demon that actuated it be destroyed! Apropos to the day are these beautiful
lines from Longfellow, which Thompson recited:
* * * Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!
Have had but little rest for two nights, owing to the storm and
severity of my complaints. No rations since the 2nd. Two hours of terrible
thunder storm. At the Sutler's "Shebang" I purchased a small wheat
biscuit for 35 cents. This is my feast (after two days' fast) for July 4th,
1864.
SOURCE: John Worrell Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a
War Prisoner in Andersonville and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864,
pp. 84-5
We moved back to the old side, five of us, unbeknown to Rebs, it being
improved by the removal of so many to the new part, and to get near the well we
dug, for we were fifty rods from water. About 3 p. m. the mule teams came to
the north gate; the boys cry "rations," the first issued for over
sixty hours. I know no other reason for this than that the first night after
the new part of the prison was occupied men carried off timbers of the old
north wall for wood or for huts. On July 2nd Capt. Wirz directed that no
rations be issued until every stick was replaced. He was heard to say on the
3rd, at the gate, that he would "learn the G-d d--n Yankees that he was in
command and if the sons of b-----s died like hell, there would be enough
left." I paid ten cents for a small rotting apple; it was good. The 6th,
Sherman's men report Johnston whipped at all points; the 8th, behind the
Chattahoochee, Sherman crossing on his flank; Grant's, Richmond in danger;
Lee's cornbread line troubled. The Southern slave empire must come down. Billy
Decker, prisoner since October, a Belle Islander, "Pinch's" old
playmate, is stopping with us. He belongs to the 1st U. S. dragoons; is from
Steuben county, New York.
SOURCE: John Worrell Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a
War Prisoner in Andersonville and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864,
p. 85
After cooking three
days' rations, we struck tents and loaded our wagons. The wagons were sent to
Booneville, twelve miles from Jacinto, on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. McNairy
moved his men back to Jacinto, and quartered them in the various unoccupied
houses. Allison's Company had splendid quarters in the court-house. Two scouts
were sent out, one to Burnsville, the other to Glendale, six miles west of the
former place, on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Found no Federals. We
remained at Jacinto for some days, scouting and picketing.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee
Confederate Cavalry, p. 167
Had orders last
night at 12 o'clock to cook rations and be ready to move at 4 A.M., but this
morning nothing farther is said about it. The order was given in anticipation
of an attack, in consequence of some demonstrations made by the enemy last
night.
It is now three
weeks since the great battle, and I understand that a great many of the enemy's
dead are yet unburied. I found, four days after the fight, some of their
wounded still unattended to. One of them, belonging to
the Sixth Ohio, I made as comfortable as possible, by filling his canteen with
water and furnishing him some matches.
SOURCE: Edwin L.
Drake, Editor, The Annals of the Army of Tennessee and Early Western History,
Vol. 1, p. 368
Rained all night.
train all day getting in. lie in camp. drizzly rain all day. to lighten the
teams all the rations are issued 2 days bread, 4 days meat to last to the
Rocks. 10 wagons sent to Bluffs. Could not cross a stream which was swolen.
Rain ceased at 9. P. M.
SOURCE: “Diary of
John S. Morgan, Company G, Thirty-Third Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa,
Vol. XIII, No. 8, Third Series, Des Moines, April 1923, p. 572
On picket guard
today. Got my boots half soled. Gen. McPherson passed through here, and Logan's
division is coming up and passing through. Our old brigade (Col. Stevenson's)
also passed. A train came in a little after dark and was loaded with cotton.
The country is stripped of everything and so we are on half rations. All the
hogs and live stock have been killed. The Negroes are suffering and I think
they would welcome their old masters. There are a great many leaving, a large
carload left today. We have poorer fare than at any time since we enlisted.
SOURCE: Seth James
Wells, The Siege of Vicksburg: From the Diary of Seth J. Wells,
Including Weeks of Preparation and of Occupation After the Surrender, p. 21
Christmas. I came
off guard duty this morning. We drew half rations for four days and part of
that was cornmeal. Our coffee is rye and in small quantities at that. The boys
have gone out to see if they can find a stray hog or beef for Christmas dinner.
Oh! if I could be at home today.
One o'clock. We just now received marching orders to be ready tomorrow morning.
Frank, Bill, Buttons and Boggs of our mess, and Ragan and Doughty of the
Peacock mess, fetched in a whole beef, and a few minutes later Abe, John and
Scott brought in a whole hog. If we live on half rations it will not be of
meat, as we have a hog and half a beef. It is very warm and pleasant today, I
lay down and took a nap, but the flies were so troublesome I could hardly
sleep.
SOURCE: Seth James
Wells, The Siege of Vicksburg: From the Diary of Seth J. Wells,
Including Weeks of Preparation and of Occupation After the Surrender, p.
21-2
Warm and raining. We
were astir early, cooked our breakfasts, filled our haversacks with meat and
what little bread we had, and fell in about 7 o'clock. It began to rain and we
had gone but a mile or two when we were wet through. We secured two ox teams,
one of six oxen, and one of four, which hauled our knapsacks. The 12th Ind. is
still camped on the Tallahatchie. Saw Lieut. E. Webster and Tom Anderson, they
are living on quarter rations. Capt. Williams, now Colonel of the regiment, was
at Holly Springs at the time it was captured and he was taken for the third
time. We marched to the Yazoo Bottoms and camped on the opposite side. It
rained and we were completely soaked. The ground was muddy and I looked around,
found a stack of corn, dug down to the dry stalks, husked out a lot and made a
bed for myself. We are, within seven miles of Holly Springs.
SOURCE: Seth James
Wells, The Siege of Vicksburg: From the Diary of Seth J. Wells,
Including Weeks of Preparation and of Occupation After the Surrender, p. 22
The first day of the
month that it has not rained. The man shot last night is carried out dead this
morning. By trading some, we are enabled to increase our rations to about half
we could eat under normal conditions.
Selden, the Rebel
quartermaster, has set up a sutler shop on main street on the north side, with
a view of absorbing Yankee money men are starved to spend. The fact that some
of the stuff on sale is the same as that issued to prisoners justifies
suspicion that he had a reason for cutting down our rations. He attempts to
whitewash this matter by putting two prisoners in charge, Charles Huckleby, of
the 8th Tennessee, and Ira Beverly, of the 100th Ohio. Nevertheless we are told
by Rebel sergeants that he has a commission from Richmond. He only appears,
however, once every day. These boys expect to live better while in his service,
but admit that the profits are "gobbled" by Selden; that he furnishes
the stuff and fixes prices. It seems an unlikely place to make money, but the
few who have any spend it fast and pay high prices. While exchange in Federal
money is prohibited by Rebel law, it is openly done everywhere by Rebels, and
in this case by a "C. S. A." military officer. Articles in stock
consist of flour, molasses, small sticks of wood, plug tobacco, a vicious sort
of whisky made from sorghum. These things appeal to starved appetites of
thousands; and those who have money cannot resist the temptation to let it go.
Though this is poor stuff, it is better than the scant rations irregularly
issued. We have to pay from 25c to $1 for an onion, 10c to 40c for miserable
apples, 25c a pint for meal, 40c for wormy hog peas, 40c for 1½ pint of flour,
10c for small piece of wood. With the advent of this institution rations grow
less in quantity and quality. It is simply a scheme of this Rebel quartermaster
to catch greenbacks, watches, rings, and things of value which men eagerly put
up. It is not instituted with a view to benefit us. If such were the object,
why do they extort such prices, why are rations cut down, why are we cheated
out of one day in five by not getting rations?
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 77-8
